This game is exhausting.
To be clear, that's exactly what Ghostrunner is aiming for, and it succeeds with flying neon colours, intense lens flares, and chromatic aberration galore.
Playing as a cyberpunk ninja, jump-dashing through a cyberpunk city, and doing cyberpunk ninja shit is every bit as fun as you'd expect it to be from watching 30 seconds of gameplay. I have to say, though, that it is even more fast-paced and frantic in action than it is to watch. You've really gotta be a wizard on the thumbsticks or mouse to 'get gud' at Ghostrunner. It also goes without saying, but people with motion sickness from first-person games need not apply for this one at all with the amount of rapid camera motions you'll be making to make certain jumps and dodges.
The setting and story are decent, but not much beyond that. You can pretty much gather where the overarching narrative is heading from the first few missions. Most of it is conveyed through the major characters conversing over comms, mostly serving as exposition to listen to as you do ninja stuff and making the story feel somewhat detached from the gameplay. But, like I said, besides the way it's delivered, the story is still decent and has some intriguing concepts here and there.
What's slightly less decent is the setting. To be clear, visually, the game is stunning, especially for a AA game, and it runs buttery-smooth on top of that, which is some really excellent wizardry on the devs' part. However, I've seen some people on here and elsewhere claim that Ghostrunner looks like a Unreal Engine tech demo come to life, and not necessarily in a complimentary way. I have to agree with that since, personally, the setting just overall looks too busy, for lack of a better word.
It's as though there was a 'cyberpunk' visual dial for the look of the city that was turned several notches higher than it should be, and although much of that was intentional, since all of humanity is supposedly crammed into the monumental mega-city that Ghostrunner takes place in, the art direction of it all still seems over the top in spite of that. This also leads to some of the visual language of the game getting lost in the geometry, as it's occasionally easy to get turned around since the golden path blends in with the rest of your surroundings.
Still, it is indeed visually stunning, despite my qualms with the art direction of the city, and it doesn't stop the vast majority of the game from being a lot of fun, albeit with some frustration along the way.
7/10
To be clear, that's exactly what Ghostrunner is aiming for, and it succeeds with flying neon colours, intense lens flares, and chromatic aberration galore.
Playing as a cyberpunk ninja, jump-dashing through a cyberpunk city, and doing cyberpunk ninja shit is every bit as fun as you'd expect it to be from watching 30 seconds of gameplay. I have to say, though, that it is even more fast-paced and frantic in action than it is to watch. You've really gotta be a wizard on the thumbsticks or mouse to 'get gud' at Ghostrunner. It also goes without saying, but people with motion sickness from first-person games need not apply for this one at all with the amount of rapid camera motions you'll be making to make certain jumps and dodges.
The setting and story are decent, but not much beyond that. You can pretty much gather where the overarching narrative is heading from the first few missions. Most of it is conveyed through the major characters conversing over comms, mostly serving as exposition to listen to as you do ninja stuff and making the story feel somewhat detached from the gameplay. But, like I said, besides the way it's delivered, the story is still decent and has some intriguing concepts here and there.
What's slightly less decent is the setting. To be clear, visually, the game is stunning, especially for a AA game, and it runs buttery-smooth on top of that, which is some really excellent wizardry on the devs' part. However, I've seen some people on here and elsewhere claim that Ghostrunner looks like a Unreal Engine tech demo come to life, and not necessarily in a complimentary way. I have to agree with that since, personally, the setting just overall looks too busy, for lack of a better word.
It's as though there was a 'cyberpunk' visual dial for the look of the city that was turned several notches higher than it should be, and although much of that was intentional, since all of humanity is supposedly crammed into the monumental mega-city that Ghostrunner takes place in, the art direction of it all still seems over the top in spite of that. This also leads to some of the visual language of the game getting lost in the geometry, as it's occasionally easy to get turned around since the golden path blends in with the rest of your surroundings.
Still, it is indeed visually stunning, despite my qualms with the art direction of the city, and it doesn't stop the vast majority of the game from being a lot of fun, albeit with some frustration along the way.
7/10